"Judith, my fr----Judith!" and he went and laid a tremulous hand upon her shoulder. "You have heard the words I spoke to Mrs. McQuirter. Will you forgive me that I should thus have declared myself in the presence of a stranger before having spoken to yourself. Believe me, dear, it was from no disrespect, no lack of appreciation; but you know how we have been with each other. Our close fellowship in the higher life may have made us forgetful of mere earthly relations, but we must remedy that now. This foolish woman, with her idle tongue, has spoken words of more wisdom than she knew, and if we are to be companions on the heavenward way, is it not well that our earthly paths should be united?"
A thrill ran all through Judith's frame. He felt her tremble beneath his hand, but still she did not lift her head.
"Judith, my own dear, you must marry me! It is necessary for your good name. If that is not enough to move you, it is necessary for mine. I will not have them say that I could trifle with a woman's regard. Though what care we, either you or I, for people's idle talk? Have we not been walking hand-in-hand, each helping and supporting the other to live aright? And has not our companionship been for good to both? Let us marry, Judith! and silence babbling tongues. It will be best so. Look up, my friend, and answer. And yet, Judith, I must own it, I am poor. I have nothing but the stipend of my curacy; and when the poor, my brothers, have had their share, and my yearly bills are paid, there is nothing over. Not a cent. It will explain to you how I never came to think of marriage before."
Then Judith raised her face suffused with blushes, and lighted with a happy eager look which had not been seen there before in twenty years; and under the transfiguring influence of an unexpected joy, she looked for the moment almost beautiful. So, when the fogs and rain of autumn have spent their strength, and the frosts of winter still linger in their coming, there fall halcyon days, when nature, not yet stripped bare of flower and foliage, blooms out again in her Indian summer. The trees are hung with wreaths of gold-bright leaves, or garlanded with crimson, the sod renewed by rains after the summer scorchings, is green with a greenness unseen at other times; the garden is still cheered by marigolds and asters, larkspur and phlox, and the sky and the waters have a sunny blueness, shining but the brighter for the smoky grey which conceals the distance--the distance which harbours winter, tempest, rain, too soon to be let loose.
A tear was quivering on Judith's eyelash. A happy sob gave a tremor to her voice when she tried to speak.
"Dionysius. And do you mean it? Marry--marry me! But it is only your gentlemanly feeling which will not have me talked about. I dare not take you at your word, however--however much--I might----" and her colour deepened, and the drops rained down, and again she hid her face.
"Indeed, it is not so, Judith. You may indeed believe me--if only you will have it so. And we have been so much to each other--and now we must be nothing any more, unless you will consent to marry."
Judith moved as if trying to gain her feet, and Dionysius took her hand to lend assistance, and so it came about that they stood with their arms entwined. Judith's head dropped on the curate's shoulder, and felt as if it would gladly linger there for ever. And he, the lady clinging and half-supported in his arms, had a vague sense of heroic worth and power as man; standing thus before the universe, lord of another life besides his own; and many other feelings, surging and confused, which would not lend themselves to words. And little more was said, though much was understood and agreed between them; and by-and-by the striking of the clock recalled them to common life, and both sat down. Then Dionysius, exhausted with excitement, grew faint and returned to his room.
Judith lingered till she was assured that the faintness was wearing off, and then she stole softly downstairs on her way home. Softly as she stepped, however, she was overheard, and ere she could reach the door, Mrs. McQuirter stood before her blocking the way; but it was Mrs. McQuirter in a different part from the one she had played so lately. Then, she was the dragon landlady ready to devour an intrusive and defenceless spinster, now she was the lone widow, the mother of six. One little toddler held on to her gown, she led another by the hand, while her other hand held a napkin saturated with the moisture which ran from her streaming eyes and bedewed her face.
"Oh, miss!" she cried with a sob, and the little ones piped a small chorus of sympathy, "I was wishful to speak to you as you went out, to make it up with you for what I said upstairs. And I'm free to confess, miss, it was not my place to speak the way I did. But I'm hot by nature, miss, and when once I begin, my tongue runs clean away from me. But I bear no malice, miss, as John McQuirter often said. 'She bears no malice,' he'd say, and them's his very words."